In Front of the Camera
by ClosetFMAfan
Summary: Eight calls. Eight people. Four fans. Four clueless. One offer. One crazy cast. One manager. Zero trained actors. Millions of fans. One Fullmetal Alchemist Live Action movie.


"Life rides on fragile breeze! Death rides on hard steel wings!"

B chord

A minor for a nice discord.

And then Parley came in with the guitar solo.

Evan Van prepared for his next line, clearing his throat discreetly away from the mike. He loved rock music, and he loved singing lead for it, but it really could wreak havoc on your throat. _And the fallen angel cries, begging for the tears to dry_.

Then the phone rang.

"Dude! Who left the phone plugged in?"

"Sorry man!" Evan yelled as he jumped over the chords and mike equipment. That was probably the College Board; they had said they were going to call. He couldn't afford to miss this call. He ran across the room and pulled the phone out of its cradle.

"Hello, this is Evan Van."

"Ah, Mr. Van. It is a pleasure to speak with you. I am Raphael Letosfor and I am the Dean of Admissions here at Rockfell University. You submitted an application to attend our school, and though it is quite the impressive application, Mr. Van, I'm afraid that you simply aren't well rounded enough for the programs here at the school. You are quite proficient in the maths and sciences—in fact your chemistry scores are well at the status as some of our graduates—but you just haven't had enough experience in the arts. We like to have our students have had some experience in art or music of some sort—"

"I've been a lead singer in a band for over two years. We've gotten contracted for several performances…"

"I'm sorry Mr. Van, but that simply isn't enough. Despite your prodigy potential, we cannot accept someone so young unless you have the best potential possible and right now… I'm very sorry Mr. Van."

Then the phone beeped and Evan looked down at it, surprised. _Call incoming._

"Excuse me for just a minute, Mr. Lesosfor, I just got another call. I will be right back."

_Maybe that would show them that I have authority,_ Evan mused. If I make him wait for me… but then again, maybe that would show them how rude I am. He could just hang up and not let me in. He could consider this an insult.

"Hello?"

"Hello, may I speak with Evan Van?"

"You are," he answered easily. It sounded like a chick. If she wanted to ask him questions or get him to buy something he swore…

"Hello, my name is Olivia Michelson and I have a very unique opportunity for you."

"If you're trying to get me to come to your college, I'm really not interested—"

"No, you must let me finish, Mr. Van." She sounded much too happy. "I work for Funimation and I am the head of a very important and new division. We specialize in live action and we are currently working recreating the Fullmetal Alchemist series into a movie—"

"Excuse me," he interrupted.

"Yes? Is there a problem?"

"What exactly are Funimation and Fullmetal Alchemist?"

"… You don't know?"

"I've never heard of either of them."

"Seriously?" she asked, sounding incredulous. "We've broadcasted several translated and dubbed anime shows to the American public—"

"I'm sorry, anime?

"Yes, anime." Evan started laughing.

"I think you have the wrong guy."

"No, Mr. Van I have the right guy," she said, starting to sound slightly annoyed. "You see we are trying to turn the Fullmetal Alchemist series into a live action movie and to do so we need to find the people who look the most like the characters. You, Mr. Van look exactly like the main character Edward Elric."

"… you want me to act in your movie."

"Yes."

"That was originally a Japanese cartoon."

"Yes."

"As the main character."

"Yes," she replied, starting to sound testy. "It is a very lucrative offer; we'll even pay for the flight to Texas. You have to admit, it would look great on a college application. I understand that you are quite the chemistry genius. If you also mention the fact that you stared in the first movie of this kind, colleges will be begging to say that you attended their school."

This finally caught Evans attention. In his mind's eye he could see Deans crawling to him on hand and knee, begging for him to attend their college. He wouldn't have to go to Rockfell because it was the only school that readily accepted prodigies, he could go anywhere.

"Sure, I'll do it."

"You will?"

"I just said I would, didn't I?"

"… Mr. Van I don't think you'll even need to act for the part."

"… what's the supposed to mean?"

"Nothing. Good day Mr. Van. We'll mail you the information you need, including the plane tickets."

She hung up and Evan stared at the phone.

Where had that come from? He didn't even like anime and someone calls and asks him if he'd like to act it out?

"Mr. Van?" a different voice said from the phone. He had forgotten Letosfor was on hold.

"Yes, I'm here. Thank you very much for considering me, Mr. Letosfor, but I just got a better offer."

"Excuse me?"

"I have just been asked to play the lead role in a brand new movie, the likes of which have never been seen before. Perhaps when I'm done you can call me again, eh?"

Then he hung up on the man.

* * *

_**Ring, ring**_

_Please go away_

_**Ring, ring**_

_I'm begging you. Please._

_**Ring, ring.**_

"Hello?" Alphonse Van mumbled sleepily into the phone. He was honestly starting to wonder if next to his name in the phonebook it said "ONLY CALL BETWEEN THE HOURS OF 12:00 PM AND 7:00". This was the fourth morning in a row he had been woken up by a phone call. Didn't people understand that as a Med Student, he didn't get enough sleep without them waking him up at—he glanced at the digital clock flashing it's numbers and groaned—4:00 in the morning already?

"Hello, is this Alphonse Van?"

"Yeah," he answered, though right now he wished he could be anyone else.

"Hello Alphonse, my name is Olivia Michelson and I have a very special opportunity for you. You see, I work for the company Funimation, have you heard of it?" the overly pleasant voice said.

"Don't you guys make anime or something?"

"Close enough, we actually translate and rebroadcast Japanese anime shows. However, I am the head of a new and very special division of our company that specializes in live action."

"… okay," Al said, still foggy. "What does this have to do with me?"

"Well, Alphonse, we have looked through the files of millions of people and of all the people on the globe, you look the most like the anime character Alphonse Elric. It's actually quite uncanny. The moment I saw your picture I knew that you were our man."

"Wait, what does that have to do with anything?"

"I'm going to blame your slowness on the hour. I do apologize for calling you so early. I want you to come to our headquarters in Texas and be an actor in our attempt to recreate the Fullmetal Alchemist series as a live action movie. In case you don't know, Fullmetal Alchemist is a show about two brothers who committed the ultimate—"

Olivia's rant was cut off when Al dropped the phone.

* * *

Her phone rang in the middle of cheer practice.

"Wendy if that's your boyfriend calling you again, I swear you will never pick up a pom-pom again!" Charlie Hendricks yelled at her. Wendy Blackwell rolled her eyes at her teammate.

"Charlie, I'm Co-Captain, you can't kick me off the team. And for your information, Evan would be in the middle of band practice right now."

It was 4:30. Evan was always at band practice at 4:30. He should be searching for colleges, but like always, her boyfriend was content to make people come to him. He got some sort of pleasure from it, but Wendy was well used to it. She was also the only person who could make him come to her.

"Hello, this is Wendy Blackwell," she answered into her phone after searching for it in her bag for a few moments.

"Hello Ms. Blackwell. My name is Olivia Michelson. I'm not interrupting, am I?" Wendy looked around and shared a small smile when she saw the annoyed look on Charlie's face.

"I've got a sec to chat."

"Good. Ms. Blackwell, do you know anything about the company Funimation?" What the heck was that? It sounded like some kiddy-website.

"No. I don't."

There was a heavy sigh. "Of course you don't. Funimation is a large scale company that rebroadcasts Japanese anime shows. I am the head of a specialized division that is working on creating a live action version of the Fullmetal Alchemist series. Of all the people on the globe, you look the most like the character Winry Rockbell."

"… excuse me?"

"Quite frankly I want you to come to our headquarters in Texas and help us film a movie. You will be playing the part of Winry Rockbell, a childhood friend of the two main characters. She's a mechanic and the reoccurring love interest of the main character."

"You want me to be an actor in your movie?" she said, loud enough for the rest of the team to hear. They all squealed and started jumping around except for Charlie who glared at her in jealousy.

"Yes, will you?"

"What types of perks am I getting?" There was a bit of chuckling from the other end.

"We'll send you a package in the mail with all the fine details and paperwork— that is if you accept. Do you?"

"Do I accept the chance to star in a movie and make money? YES!" she squealed and started jumping around.

"… I'm glad you're so enthusiastic…" the woman said sounding slightly freaked out.

* * *

"Ron, you're wanted in Mr. Skiso's office. Now."

Ron Bay looked up from his Chinese take-out box. What did the boss want with him? He had turned in his paperwork (mostly) on time that week so there shouldn't be anything to complain about. He had skipped a date to finish it all off for crying out loud! If there was any reason for Skiso (or as everyone in the office liked to call him, Schizo) to call him to his office it had better be to offer him a medal.

Whether he wanted to or not, Ron stood up, left the take-out box sitting forlornly on the desk, and walked down the hall towards his boss's office. As he walked his coworkers stuck their heads out of their own cubicles and started cheering. He had no idea way. No one ever cheered for him; no one liked him.

"Ah, hello Ron," Schizo said once he had closed the door to his office behind him. Why was he being nice? Usually he was greeted by a 'BAY! This is the last time!' "Congratulations, I am so happy for you."

"… why?"

"We're really going to miss you here. I don't think we'll be able to hold your job though, so I guess this is goodbye for good. Here's a going away present. We'll miss you buddy. See you… actually I don't think I will. Bye!"

Then he was unceremoniously shoved out the door with a badly wrapped paper-weight.

As he walked in a daze out of the office he heard one of the girls from papers (one of the ones who hated his guts. You turn in your paperwork late… a lot and suddenly no one likes you.) saying quite loudly,

"I'm glad he's gone, but why on earth would they want him to play Roy Mustang! Mustang's hot, Ron so is not!"

… Roy Mustang? What the heck was going on here? Did he fall asleep at his desk again? Was this a dream? Or some freaky nightmare?

But when he got the paperwork in the mail (well, first he groaned) describing his role in the new Live Action Fullmetal Alchemist Movie and plane ticket to Texas, he could only sit there.

"How the heck did I get coerced into this?"

* * *

Elizabeth Awkey wearily crossed out a few more answers. She hated grading the end of the year tests. Some of the students went all out and studied for hours while other decided it was too much effort at the end of the years. As a result, the grading curve was impossible to figure out and every other test was either an A+ or an F-.

So it was not with a good temper that she picked up the phone when it rang at her home that night.

"What do you want?"

"… I'm sorry, am I interrupting?"

"Yes, you are," she growled back.

"Well, I'm sincerely sorry about that, but I simply must talk to you. You see, my name is Olivia Michelson—"

"If this is about Joseph's last grade on his test, I made it quite clear at the beginning of the year that I am not offering extra credit."

"What, no. I'm not … Joseph's guardian. I'm calling because you have been given the unique opportunity to work on recreating the Fullmetal Alchemist series in live—"

"I also made it clear at the beginning of the year that I am not handing back any contraband items. Students are not allowed to watch any anime shows, or any shows, during class or I will confiscate and wipe the iPods, iPhones, or computers of the files. End of story. If the shows really mean that much to them you can tell them to download it illegally, I'm sure that's how they got them in the first place. Now, if you'll excuse me—"

"No. Ms. Awkey, you didn't give me a chance to explain. I am not a parent or have any relation to your classroom. I work for a specialized division of Funimation and we are attempted to recreate the Fullmetal Alchemist series into a live action movie. You look exactly like the character Riza Hawkeye and we would like you to come to Texas and play the part."

"… what?"

"We would like you to act in our movie. It's a reiteration of the Fullmetal Alchemist anime series—" Olivia answered sounding tired, as if she had done it many times that day.

"You want me to act in your movie?"

"Yes."

"But I've never acted before!"

"Neither have most of our new actors. I don't believe I even talked directly to the man who is going to be playing your boss, Roy Mustang. In fact, I fairly sure it was his boss that told me he would be happy to do it."

"And why do you want me?" Elizabeth asked, leaning forward in her bed. It was her favorite place to grade.

"Because you looked exactly like the character. We're adapting an anime show into a live action movie, we need actors who look exactly like the characters. We can't just pick up a cosplayer off the streets, if you know what I mean. We tried scouring the Cons, but it just didn't… well, you know what I mean."

"Actually, no I don't."

There was a heavy sigh.

"Never mind. We will send you the paperwork, you know, contracts and conditions. That is, if you accept. It will take a while, longer than just your summer break."

Elizabeth stared at the pile of papers next to her and the hours spent alone in her apartment grading papers and listening to angry parents complain.

"Deal."

* * *

"Lucas!"

Lucas Nguyen sighed and closed the door behind him. Just once, ONCE, he would like to be able to come home without having his mom yell at him. Whether it was the A minus on his report card or wearing his soccer mud caked shoes one inch inside the house, he could be sure that she would have something to say about it.

"Lazy boy, come!"

He was just never good enough for her. He had to be the best at school and still maintain an all win record at soccer, which his mother thought was a waste of time anyways. She probably wouldn't even be satisfied if he became Emperor of the known world.

"I'm coming Mother."

When he entered the kitchen where his mother spent most of her day, she was standing over the stove holding their phone.

"A woman called. She say she has job for you."

Lucas didn't say anything, just held out his hand for the phone. She glared at him for his impoliteness, but handed it to him all the same.

"Hello?"

"Hello, Lucas?" The voice was overly pleasant but very tired, like the person had been making calls all day. Where they offering him a job as a telephone operator or something? "My name is Olivia Michelson and, as your mother had no doubt told you, I have a job offer for you. Have you ever heard of Funimation?"

"Isn't that an anime company? They dubbed Fullmetal Alchemist and D-Gray Man, right?" Both of which he had seen, though he would rather die than let his mother find out. If she knew that he had spent that much time doing nothing more than staring at a screen, she would ban him from everything that wasn't a textbook for the rest of the year.

"Yes, very good." She sounded relived and like she was smiling. "You see, I work for Funimation, as you have probably guessed. I am the head of a very specialized division of our company that is working to create a live action version of the Fullmetal Alchemist series. As such we need the best people on the planet. We have scoured the globe looking for the people who look the most like our character and you, Mr. Nguyen look exactly like the character Ling Yao."

"… Ling Yao?"

"Yes, he's the Prince of Xing who becomes one with the homunculus Greed. You would be playing both parts of course, which is an opportunity that none of the other actors get."

"Let me clarify. You want me to come to your headquarters and play the part of Ling Yao in your attempt to recreate the Fullmetal Alchemist anime in live action?"

The sound of a large pot crashing behind him made Lucas turn his head to see his mother who was glaring at the phone with enough force to make it combust. She started mouthing the word "no" over and over until she was saying it so fast he couldn't even tell what she was saying anymore.

"Yes that does just about sum it up."

His mother started shaking her head too and he watched for a few moments.

"Lucas, will you do it?"

"When's the plane and are you paying for it?"

* * *

He had said hi to her.

He had said hi.

_Hi_

She felt like she had died and gone to heaven.

Lucas Nguyen, star of the soccer team, her crush since the sixth grade had said hi to her. Everyone at her dojo had said something about her acting differently, so she wasn't really surprised when her mother had asked her if she was alright. Mothers are much more attuned to when their children are different than usual.

"A woman just called, sweetheart. She wants to talk to you."

"Who is it?" Lily Fujita answered softly, looking up from the book that she couldn't read.

"Olivia something. She told me that she wanted to talk to you about an anime show."

"Anime show?"

"Yes. Maybe she read that wonderful series of essays you wrote theming around what anime can teach you."

Lily colored and stood up, leaving the book on the chair she was sitting in. "It wasn't that good, Mother. You need to stop bragging about it."

"Sweetheart, you won a $500 scholarship for it. I would say that's worth bragging about." The bright blush on Lily's cheeks deepened as she grabbed the phone from her mother.

"Hello, you said you wanted to talk to me?"

"Yes, Ms. Fujita. My name is Olivia Michelson and I would like to offer a very special job offer to you. I work for Funimation, which is a large company that takes Japanese anime and rebroadcasts them."

Lily knew all of this, she loved watching anime, but she didn't want to interrupt the woman. She seemed so nice.

"My team and I have been looking for months to find the people who look the most like the characters in the series Fullmetal Alchemist. And you, Ms. Fujita have an uncanny resemblance to Lan Fan."

"What?"

"Yes. Have you ever seen the show?"

"Well, yes I have, but—"

"Well, that's a relief. We would want you to come to our headquarters in Texas so that we can see just how good you are. I would suggest taking some sort of introduction to martial arts so that the moves will not be hard for you to do. We will use stunt doubles, obviously, but it would still be a good idea to know how to do them yourself. And then when you—Oh, how silly of me. I forgot to ask you if you would even like to do it. Would you? It's a great opportunity."

"… well I don't think I'd be able to do a very good job," she said in a quiet voice. She couldn't play such a strong character! She enjoyed sitting in the corner of the class and not saying anything. She had never said a single word to the guy she had had a crush on for five years!

"It's okay sweetheart," she said and Lily was reminded of her mother and all the times she had told her to speak up for herself. "We'll figure all of that out later. Will you?"

Once again she saw Lucas looking her direction and saying that one wonderful word and she had to smile a little. Next time, she wanted to be able to say something back.

"Sure. I will."

* * *

The young Chinese girl's fingertips were poised over the keyboard, her eyes glinting greedily as she prepared to type up a review for her favorite fanfic, _Not-So-Subtle Messages,_ which had just updated a half hour ago. Her hands descended and there was a furious sound of clacking from the young fanfic writer's laptop.

In a minute, she clicked the "Submit Feedback/Review" button and grinned as she saw a review from "XiaoMay" pop up on the review's page of said fanfic.

"I wonder when Fullmetalfan will send her reply..." she asked nobody in particular.

At fourteen, Tiang May Shen was a successful writer, with over 1000 reviews on her top three most popular stories, and her less-known stories were floating at around 300 each. On the Fullmetal Alchemist page on , she was XiaoMay.

Okay, so she wasn't a "real" writer, she was just a fanfiction writer. But still, she wasn't known as the "Admiral of the AlMei Fleet" for nothing. She had the most stories dedicated to solely AlMei and all of her stories (many of which were very popular) that weren't solely dedicated to AlMei somehow incorporated it.

But she was rambling.

Abruptly, the girl started as her mom called from downstairs, "May, someone wants to talk to you on the phone!" May frowned; she had just found another potentially good fanfic.

"Okay, Mom," she replied as she hurried out to the hall where the house phone was. "Hello, May Tiang speaking. Who is this?"

"Hello, my name is Olivia Michelson," a very tired voice said, "and I work for a company named Funimation. Do you happen to know what "Fullmetal Alchemist" is?"

"Yes I do. May I know why you are calling?" May asked cautiously. It hadn't been the first time a fangirl had tried to stalk her down for spoilers for her story. Those were not pleasant experiences.

"Well, I'm part of a special section in the movies department of Funimation and we are planning on making a live-action movie of Fullmetal Alchemist. I've been through hundreds of profiles and of all the people I've seen, you look the most like Mei Chang."

"Um, okay? Why are you telling me this?" It was true, she supposed. May had always cosplayed as Mei whenever she went to anime conventions and the reactions usually ran along the lines of "HOLY MOTHER OF COSPLAY!" whenever anyone saw her. That reminded her; she needed to talk about this experience in her author's note for her next chapter of "Letters".

"We would like you to play the role of Mei in the movie. Would you like to? You'll have to fly over to Texas, of course, but we'll be paying for everything," Olivia said.

There was no response.

"Hello, are you there?"

Olivia's ears never stood a chance.

"KYAAAA! OF COURSE I WILL!" May fangirl-ed into the phone. "My readers will be so excited!"

This was _so_ going in her end author note.

From the phone, she heard the quiet whimpering of "My poor ears…"

* * *

**I don't know how often updates will be. Probably pretty far in between. I'm mostly uploading it now so that I'll feel obligated to actually work at it instead of letting it rot on my computer.**

**Special thanks to Exile Wrath for writing the section about Mei! She really wanted to write it, so I let her, and it turned out really good! She's also the person who's been bugging me to upload this the most.**


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